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"He may have been shooting at me," Rauschkolb said as he shook Maeda's hand.

Overcoming the legacy of the attack, the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbor and the Americans who survived the attack are coming together during a series of Pearl Harbor anniversary observations in Hawaii.

Some, like Rauschkolb and Maeda, shake hands spontaneously after being introduced.

Others are doing so before crowds in a symbolic show of peace, like the Japanese and American World War II aviators scheduled to attend the opening of the new Pacific Aviation Museum today.

A significant share of veterans from both countries say they respect each other as professional military men who fought for their countries. Now in their 80s and 90s, they don't want to live burdened with hatred and want to die with peace in their hearts.

Not all veterans can bring themselves to put the past behind them. For some, the memories are too painful and their loyalty to fallen comrades too strong for them to reach out.

Don Stratton, a USS Arizona sailor who suffered burns over 60 percent to 70 percent of his body, said embracing the Japanese who carried out the attack is out of the question.

"I don't stand beside them. I don't sit beside them. I don't shake hands with them," Stratton said. "There's a thousand men out there on that ship that lost 65 years of their life and I'm sure they would not shake hands with them."

More than 1,100 died aboard the Arizona, accounting for almost half of the 2,390 Americans killed that day.

Maeda has been trying to make amends since 1991, when he and a few other Japanese Pearl Harbor veterans flew to Hawaii for the 50th anniversary of the attack.

He's since become friends with dozens of Pearl Harbor survivors, including many who have visited him in Japan.

When in Honolulu, Maeda always pays his respects at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, where his friend Richard Fiske, another USS West Virginia survivor, was buried after his death two years ago.